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British philosopher Gilbert Ryle attempted to define the seemingly straightforward concept of “feelings” in his 1951 essay.[1] During that time period, psychology and psychiatry had risen as popular fields, but little work had been done to actually define the components of an “emotion” or a “feeling.” Consequently, Ryle set out to establish some constrains on this nebulous subject by suggesting that feelings are distinguished by various bodily or mental sensations.

In the first section of this article, Ryle presented seven distinct conceptions of “feelings.” It is clear that he put much contemplation in this presentation, for he named usages that would typically escape most people. He began with the common definition of feelings as sensory perception, but he distinguished between uncontrollable instinctual bodily responses (e.g., feeling cold or feeling an itch) and purposeful, thought-out motions to find an object or determine something about an object (e.g., feeling water with one’s fingers to figure out its temperature). In another definition, Ryle distinguished between feeling bodily sensations and feeling general conditions, such as sleepy, ill, wide-awake, uneasy, or depressed, deeming the latter to be more “mental.”

Furthermore, Ryle included idiomatic phrases that incorporated conjugations of “to feel” to remind readers how easy it is to forget figurative usages of common words. There’s “feeling that something is the case” to express a gut inclination that is not yet strong enough to be held as an actual thought or belief. There’s also “feeling like doing something” to express the temptation one has to take an inappropriate action, such as falling asleep in class. These figurative or hypothetical uses of feelings are easily overlooked, so Ryle’s thoughtful inclusion brings useful philosophical insight for other researchers.

In the second and final section of this paper, Ryle expanded upon the various definitions of “feelings” he advanced, discussing where the line blurred between each one. While his meticulous analysis is largely palatable, his omission of the common notion of feeling does not sit easily. In the entire article, he never mentions feeling an emotion, such as happy, sad, or angry. Whether this was an intentional omission or a sloppy oversight is unclear, but it weakens Ryle’s definition, as emotions are neither pure bodily states nor pure mental sensations, and he provides no preemptive response to such arguments. Nevertheless, Ryle’s work still provided the impetus for an ongoing debate about the nature of emotion.